


Losing My Religion

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Canon, Child Abuse, Drama, Episode Related, Het, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, No Slash, Points of View, Prequel, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-07
Updated: 2004-07-07
Packaged: 2018-12-27 10:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12079197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Brian observes his faith at a number of intervals throughout his life. Spoilers through 410.





	Losing My Religion

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

When Brian is a week old, his mother insists on his being Baptised. Some loose-robed priest drones on for an hour or so about how he's now a Child of God, dumps a cup of water over his head, and mumbles something in Latin as he makes the sign of the cross. Brian doesn't remember this, but he does have a copy of it on tape - Joan made his father record it, before Jack got really drunk a few years later and dropped the video camera.

Brian doesn't even remember sequestering it from his parents' house when he's packing up to leave for college, and he's not entirely sure why he took it in the first place. He really doesn't remember having it until Justin is going through a couple of boxes in his storage space in the loft one afternoon and pops it into the VCR just as Brian is returning home from work. "Wow, your mom looks really young," the blond comments as the shaky footage focuses momentarily on an indeed more youthful Joan Kinney, watching her son being Christened with Holy Water and wearing a grim expression that alludes to neither pleasure nor pain. That, Brian thinks, hasn't changed, at least. 

The figures on-screen gather in a circle to recite the Our Father; the camera picks up sounds of movement in the pews, indicating that everyone else is standing up to join them. The group collaboratively mumbles its way clear up to, "... give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses," before a shrill wail makes itself known. Tiny fists shake furiously as a red-faced baby Brian screams his own version of the prayer mutinously. 

Justin smirks. "Only a few days old, and already raising Hell." There's a fondness in his tone, however chastising the comment, though, and Brian cannot help but ruffle his hair affectionately. 

...

At five, Brian sits boredly in the middle, roughly, of a pre-alphabetized line of kids, waiting to receive his First Communion. His mother warns him ahead of time in the car that he's not supposed to slouch, and his father's words, while in the same vein, are much sharper, so Brian concentrates so hard on sitting up ram-rod straight that he's hardly paying attention to the priest's sermon. They're usually pretty boring, though, even moreso than the ones he has to listen to in Sunday school, so he figures he isn't missing much. 

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the alter, Brian's glassy eyes venture a gaze towards the pews slightly off-center; he only has to turn his head an increment to spot his parents and Claire, who is making a face at him (the same thing he did to her during her First Communion ceremony a couple of years prior), shielded from Joan by Jack's beefy shoulder. Joan is very disapproving of anybody misbehaving even on the way to and from church, and even though Jack is very good at dishing out suitable punishment for it, he hardly pays attention to his kids otherwise. 

Finally, the priest motions for the children to stand up, and makes his way down the line, clutching a fancy silver goblet. An assistant follows him, carrying another silver cup full of wafers. "The Body of Christ," he murmurs, just as the kids have been told he will in their classes, and Brian chances a glance out at his family again. His mother looks on expectantly, and his father's expression is clear to read: 'don't screw this up, Sonny-boy.' Brian watches the girl two spaces to his left, slightly chunky with messy blonde pigtails, carefully arrange her hands the way their Sunday school teacher has been making them practice for weeks. 'Right over left', Brian chants to himself; he doesn't want to mess this up. 

When it's his turn, Brian looks up at the priest, scrutinizing him so carefully that he nearly forgets his hand motions. "The Body of Christ," the man says softly and smiles, placing the wafer in Brian's upturned, cupped palm. Feeling very important, Brian slips it into his mouth; it's not sticky, exactly, but it adheres rather firmly to his tongue, and Brian swallows a couple of times, mustering up enough saliva to move it around so he can chew it. It's pretty flavourless, he decides, and he's slightly disappointed, because he's pretty sure that real flesh would be saltier. And then he realizes that Jesus' flesh is Divine, so that obviously makes a difference. He hopes his mother doesn't somehow find out that he's thought about something so distasteful about the Lord; he's pretty sure she'd tell him it's a sin. 

Thirsty, now, he's relieved when the priest holds the goblet out to him. "The Blood of Christ," he says by way of explanation. The Sunday school teacher's instructions come bidden into Brian's mind at that point: "Only take a small sip," she'd explained, enunciating slowly as if to indicate the importance of her words. "Don't spit back into the goblet; and when you're finished, don't let go until you're sure the priest has a good hold on it. We don't want Jesus' blood to spill on the alter." She crossed herself at this, as if horrified at the very idea, and Brian had had to work to smother a laugh. Religious people, he'd already decided, were kind of weird.

Brian grips the base anxiously, watching the dark red liquid slosh around slightly as he tips the cup at very small increments. He's worried that Jesus will punish him if he doesn't follow directions to the nth degree, and so just when the first taste of wine touches his lips, he tenses. The priest seems to notice his hesitance and tips the cup a little more, until Brian has a small mouthful of the stuff; his eyes widen as he swallows - it's bitter-tasting and lukewarm, and he wishes he didn't have to sit through twenty or so more kids following suit before he can run to the water fountain out in the lobby and get the bad taste out of his mouth. He's so overwhelmed by how gross it is that he very nearly forgets to cross himself after handing the cup back. 

The priest and his assistant move on down the line, and Brian looks longingly at the sets of double doors standing in the way of his freedom. It's like he's trapped in a desert and so dehydrated that he's seeing mirages of clear, crisp glasses of refreshment. Eventually, he shifts his gaze towards his family - his mother, face devoid of expression as per the usual, nods at him slightly, and Brian fights the urge to beam, because he knows that Pride is a sin. But he can't help but think that he's made his mother very pleased with him today, so he allows himself to smile just a little bit.

...

When Brian is eleven, his mother signs him up to be an alter boy; he has no choice in the matter, and even though he'd rather use the time spent learning all of the ceremonial procedures on playing soccer or something instead, he can't think of a good enough reason to defy his mother. So he attends the classes sullenly, learns how and when and where to carry long candles on poles at the start and end of mass, to open and close the priest's brass-backed copy of the Holy Bible so he can recite excerpts from it, and why it's imperative for him to always be clean and quiet and otherwise respectful of God's House. 

Jack has long since stopped attending services, but Brian knows that Joan can usually be found kneeling in one of the pews at least three or four times a week, even outside of scheduled mass. He's not sure exactly why she has so much to talk to God about; maybe she's just really thankful that Brian and Claire are both such good students, or perhaps she, too, is worried about how much and often Jack drinks. Brian never paid attention to it until Jack struck him for no apparent reason a few months prior. Jack has never been shy about using the belt on his children's backsides, although his hand quite suffices, but when Jack stumbled in one night with the smell of cheap whiskey on his breath, Brian didn't dare mouth off. "What the fuck are you staring at?" his father demanded, though, and against his better judgment, Brian felt obligated to answer.

"Nothing, Dad," he replied, shifting his eyes downward. His hands had suddenly become very interesting to look at. 

Jack scoffed and staggered closer, alcohol permeating Brian's nostrils even more. "Think you're better than me, don't you? Too good to look at your old man, huh, Sonny-boy?" he hissed. Brian shook his head, but his father pulled him up by the shirt collar anyways. The smack across his face was sharp enough that it was probably going to leave a bruise, and Brian cried out before he could stop himself. "Aww, you gonna cry, Sonny-boy?" Jack slurred, and Brian wondered if he was going to strike him again. "Only fucking faggot fairies cry," his father declared heatedly, and when that didn't get a rise out of his son, Jack loosened his grip enough for Brian to pull away. He watched his father stumble up the stairs and only half-hoped that his mother and sister didn't hear any of what had transpired. But he's pretty sure that Joan had, at least, because what other reasons could she have, otherwise, to spend so much time praying? 

Brian is exceptionally smart for his age - his teachers at the local junior high school all say this practically verbatim to his mother, to which Joan just nods as if she expects it. "He doesn't like to get involved or really participate with other children, though," they lament, and it's true; Brian thinks most kids his age are stupid and clique-y, always pointing and whispering about his shaggy hair and well-worn clothes, talking behind cupped hands about the latest bruise he tries unsuccessfully to hide. Claire fares a bit better in her high school, if nothing else, because Brian bears the brunt of his father's drunken rages, and also since Claire is as gossip-y and ditzy as the best of them. She also babysits around the neighborhood a lot, which gives her enough spending money to make a passing attempt at keeping up with the latest fashions and music and whatnot. 

But Brian is quiet and sullen, and this pretty much garners him the title of "weird" almost immediately. Kids stay away from him, and Brian gladly returns the favor; he eats lunch in the library, sneaking glances at the stuffy librarian as he munches idly on the sandwich he put together himself that morning. He reads a lot, and finds that he enjoys solitary sports where interaction with people isn't a requirement. His teachers are elated when he takes up track-and-field, therefore, which keeps him busy after school 4-5 days a week. Brian enjoys the pasttime, recognizing early on the symbolism of running away from his problems, of being free, of pushing his limits. He's always liked coming up with snappy catch phrases, and finds himself doing this often about track; "Hermes-brand shoes - by the Gods, they're good!", a reference to the messenger God of Greek mythology, for example. Brian fancies that, one day, he'll find an occupation where this seemingly pointless talent can be put to use.

Joan notices eventually that Brian isn't home as much, and seems disapproving. "You've told your coach that you have obligations first and foremost to the church on Sundays, correct?" she asks one afternoon.

"We never have practice or meets on Sunday," Brian explains, irritated. Mentally, he adds that he couldn't give a damn about the church or its obligations, but he doesn't quite know how his mother will react - or if she'll tell his father. She probably will, and even though Jack doesn't really need a reason to beat his son once there's enough alcohol addling his system, if Brian can avoid unnecessary excess pummeling, so much the better. 

Joan never comes to watch him run, which further annoys Brian. As far as he's concerned, he always attends church, so the least she could do is reciprocate with his chosen activity. "I have something going on that afternoon," she laments time and time again, and Brian's pretty sure he can guess what when he comes home, freshly showered from a quick locker room spritzing, and finds her passed out on the couch with an empty wine bottle at her feet. 'Only a sip, Mother,' he thinks to himself one time as he picks the TV remote off the floor from where she dropped it and sets it on the coffee table. 

On a rare day, Brian returns from a meet to find Joan quite sober; however, he quickly wishes that she weren't. "You should not be spending so much time on extracurricular activities," she admonishes. "It puts your mind on things other than God." Brian's not sure what to say in response, so he just makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat and trudges up the stairs to his bedroom. 

It's true, he thinks, running *does* take his mind off of God and his father's abuse and his mother's apathy and the fact that his sister doesn't get these kinds of lectures even though she hardly ever goes to church anymore and he has to be there every fucking Sunday trussed up in uncomfortable robes for the two-hour service. But he doesn't think escapism is altogether a bad thing, and he's pretty sure God wouldn't either. After all, he had to know when he created Joan Kinney how much of a pain in the ass she'd be for everyone around her. 

...

Brian is thirteen when his mother thinks it's time for him to be Confirmed. "Then when you get married to a nice Christian girl, you can be married by the church," Joan explains, and Brian wonders if she realizes that this is hardly a perk. In eighth grade, now, Brian's father still beats him, and he's still antisocial and angry at school, so he's pretty sure he's not catching any admiring eyes. And when he thinks about it, he's not entirely sure he's interested; he hears his male classmates guffawing and talking about girls in the locker room, which ones are hot and who, in particular, is easy, and finds, time and time again, that he has no interest in pursuing them. He wonders if there's something wrong with him, and if so, just what else he has to do to fix it. He's pretty sure his mother would tell him that it's because he hasn't fully accepted God into his heart, but he still spends nearly as much time in God's house as his own. Surely, he decides, that has to be worth something. 

Confirmation, like many other steps in assimilating oneself into Catholicism, requires a number of classes as part of the preparation. Brian dutifully attends them, learning quite quickly that he only needs to pay attention when the instructor raises her voice for enunciation purposes; the rest of the time, he's free to daydream. He's always been a good student - "extremely talented" proclamations still follow him around - and picks information up easily, so for the most part, the classes are just boring. There is one thing that catches his attention, though, another boy who always situates himself just a little bit away from everyone else, as if observing them from a distance. Brian makes eye contact with him once, his own hazel set blazing into the other's soft green, and it's intense. 

After class is over, the other boy, broad-shouldered and probably a year or so older than Brian, gives him a sideways smile. He leaves without turning around, sauntering with an air of superiority that Brian envies, and Brian hesitates only a second before following him; down a long hallway, around a couple of corners, and eventually into a dimly-lit closet. Brian's not really sure what's possessing him, but he doesn't protest very much when the other boy reaches over and rubs his hand over Brian's crotch; it's probably because, when he looks down, he realizes that he's got an erection. And though he's normally embarrassed when this happens in the locker room at school, something about the current scenario, with the added prospect of being caught, no less, makes it seem alright. 

"You're hard," the other boy whispers, and Brian wets his lips nervously and nods. They make eye contact again, and Brian silently gives him permission to unzip his pants. On his knees, now, the other boy tugs down Brian's pants and underwear, and before Brian knows it, his cock is sheathed in the guy's mouth. It's warm and wet and hot, and Brian finds himself gripping tufts of the older boy's sandy blond hair as he brings him closer and closer to release. Brian has only ever brought himself off with his hand, and it's usually in the dead of night because his mother has told him how immoral such an act is; but the feelings surging through him are so much more intense than they are when he masturbates that he has to bite his knuckle to keep from yelling as he comes. The other boy's mouth ripples around his dick as he swallows a couple of times, and when he wipes his face with the back of his hand, Brian can see him smiling, even in the dim light. 

That night, Jack calls Brian a "fucking fairy" after he absentmindedly drops a plate while clearing the dinner table, giving Jack incentive to hit him a couple of times. The next day in Confirmation class, the other boy, whom the teacher refers to as Daniel at some point, won't even look at Brian. He makes a beeline for the door again as soon as they're excused, and though Brian has a million questions, he figures this is the only answer that will be provided him. 

When Brian finally reaches full Confirmation status, he's expected to confess his sins to a priest. Sitting in the tiny booth, hands clammy despite constantly wiping them on his slacks, he waits for the priest to give him the go-ahead. "Do you have any sins you'd like to confess?" he asks, after what seems like an eternity, and when Brian opens his mouth to speak, it's as if somebody has stuffed it with cotton.

"Uh," he finally manages; his fingers clutch at his covered legs and he gulps. He has so much he'd like to say, so much he wants to have confirmed, but suddenly, he just can't bring himself to do it. 

"Well," he says at last. "Once, a couple of weeks ago, I called my sister a bad name." 

...

Jack loses his job and forces the Kinney family to relocate to Pittsburgh the summer before Brian is slated to start high school. Part of him is hopeful that the change of environment and step up in a grade will mean a new beginning for him, perhaps even a friend or two, but then he reminds himself that he's still the weird, sulky kid with odd bruises on his face and shoulders and back who got suspended for three days once because some jackass wouldn't leave him alone about the bruises, which only caused Jack to add a few more to his already broad collection. And then he decides that Pittsburgh's going to be as much a pain in the ass as any place he could live. 

But that's before he meets Michael Novotny. They have Chemistry together during third period, and because Brian's the new kid, nobody offers to take him on as their partner. Michael doesn't either, initially, but as everyone factions off into pairs, he's the only other person left out - and in fact, doesn't seem to have tried to buddy up with anyone - and the teacher ushers them together. 

Michael's a geek, Brian thinks; it's his initial analysis of the other boy, and one that sticks for as long as they know one another. He has superhero shit all over his school supplies and locker, and talks incessantly about some guy named Captain Astro. Brian has never read comic books, but Michael loves them, which Brian realizes the first time Michael invites him over after school so they can finish up a lab report together. Michael's room, like his binder, is decked out in Captain Astro-themed decor, and when Michael gingerly hands him a thin comic book wrapped in a plastic sheath and instructs him to be careful with it, Brian thinks he might have found a friend in this dorky kid. 

Brian meets Michael's mom, a flamboyant woman with an even more flamboyant red hair piece. She insists that Brian calls her "Debbie", not "Mrs. Novotny", which seems weird to Brian because all of his mother's friends - Joan only ever associates with other women from church - are very formal. Debbie's loud and obnoxious, but she feeds Brian extra sandwiches and calls him "kiddo" and, once she puts two-and-two together and realizes that Brian's bruises aren't from playing soccer - which he's taken on to keep himself out of his house as much as possible - she's prone to hugging him spontaneously. Brian thinks Michael's lucky to have a mom who shows affection like this, and tells him as much. Michael, always trying to give back in some way, laments that at least Brian has a father; Brian just snorts and buries his face in Issue #29 of Captain Astro. 

Debbie has raised Michael as Catholic, but even though she's a member of the same church that Joan joins up with in Pittsburgh, the two rarely show up for services. Brian goes for a while, more out of habit than anything; he sits in a pew nearly every Sunday alongside his mother, trying to match the impassive expression that so characterizes Joan Kinney. He listens only with half-interest, until the day when the priest delves into a sphiel about the eternal damnation of gay people. 

"If a man lies with another man the same way that he lies with a woman," the priest paraphrases, eyes flashing fire and brimstone from the alter. "That is an abomination." Brian notices that Joan is nodding her head and pursing her lips in agreement, that she's not the only one, either, and the bottom of his stomach feels as if it's lined with rocks. He hasn't desecrated anymore church closets, per se, but he's old enough, now, to know the meaning of words like "homosexual" and "gay" and "faggot", and he's pretty sure all of them apply to him. He sucks off his gym teacher one afternoon, and realizes that he likes sucking cock as much as he likes having his own sucked, and decides that a straight guy would never admit that. 

He confides in Michael one afternoon, and the other boy looks ten shades of relieved. Soon, comic book appreciation isn't the only thing Brian and Michael share; one day, Michael swipes a magazine from where his mom works, and he and Brian languish over the full-body photos of Patrick Swayze. Brian has one of his hands down Michael's pants and the other on the magazine when Debbie walks in on them, carrying a basket of laundry. "Well, geez, I was going to ask you boys if you wanted a snack," she snorts, but doesn't seem disappointed or angry or even all that surprised. Brian secretly wishes Debbie were his mom. 

A few weeks later, Jack demands to know why Brian's spending so much time at the Novotny residence. Brian's pretty sure this accusation is without the knowledge, even, that Michael's house is where he sneaks off to in the middle of the night to avoid a run-in with Jack's latest drunken rage, but he still protests that he's not over there that much, really. "That Michael kid's kind of a wuss, isn't he?" Jack grunts, meandering heavily over to his favourite recliner and propping bare feet up on the coffee table. "Probably gets beat up a lot at school," he mutters from behind the newspaper. "Fucking faggot." Brian clenches his fists in his lap but remains silent, standing to head up to his room. 

"Brian, remember to set your alarm for church tomorrow," Joan says, as if she hadn't been sitting in the room listening to the exchange the entire time. And suddenly, Brian decides that he's had enough.

"Can't," he replies, stacking his plate by the sink and tossing his napkin in the garbage can on his way to the staircase. "I've got a project to finish with Michael and it's going to take all day." He doesn't have to turn back around to see his mother's disapproving glance; and as he makes his way down the makeshift rope ladder he's had stashed by his bed, crawling out the window as he's done many times, usually in the middle of the night when his face is still throbbing from Jack's latest assault, he realizes that he doesn't care what his mother or the church or God thinks anymore.

...

Throughout the majority of his high school and college days, religion doesn't do much for Brian. He gets hit up by enough invitations to join Christian-based fraternities and clubs and groups, and once, he fucks a Mormon guy in his dorm room, but that's about the extent of his estranged relationship with God. 

When he's a junior on academic and athletic scholarship, he meets up with Lindsey Peterson, an aspiring art student whose entire education is being funded by her WASP-y parents. Lindsey, like Brian, doesn't attend church even though her parents are regular attendants, although Lindsey doesn't seem to have a vendetta against it the way Brian does. Still, mutual cynicism over a number of other topics, combined with meshing personalities makes them out to be fast friends; as a result, Brian finds himself regularly hanging out with her, in between bouts of fucking anything with a dick that walks, and honouring his scholarship requirements.

After enough alcohol persists to loosen Brian's tongue on one such evening, he finds himself talking about the stupidest things, including his thoughts on religion. "I figure," he slurs, lying across Lindsey's flower-patterned comforter and puffing on a joint, "that we're the only ones who know God exists. Without us, he's nothing."

"Wow ... that's kind of deep," Lindsey muses. Brian attempts a thoughtful face, and then they both burst out laughing. 

Brian brings Lindsey over to Michael and Debbie's during Christmas break that year; Brian can tell that Michael is envious, because Lindsey has gotten to spend quantifiable amounts of time in Brian's presence while he's away at school, and now she's monopolizing him on his vacation, too. 

Eventually, Joan and Jack get wind of their son being in town and insist that he stops by. Begrudgingly, Brian introduces Lindsey to his parents; his father shakes her hand with more warmth than Brian has seen him grant even his mother and calls her "little lady" and hints not-so-subtly about the fact that Claire just got engaged, and wouldn't it be nice if Brian followed suit? Joan seems reluctant about the idea, until she hears that Lindsey's parents are also devoutly Catholic. "Come back anytime," she insists once Brian decides he can't take anymore and tugs at Lindsey to leave. 

"My parents are overbearing," Brian says by way of apology. "Next year, I'll have to keep off their respective fucking radars better."

"Oh, I don't mind," Lindsey chides lightly, favouring Brian with a smile as they drive back up to campus. A couple of months later, Brian and Lindsey's platonic cuddling during a private screening of 'Dirty Dancing' while her roommate's away turns into something more. Brian doesn't remember much of it, as he's quite intoxicated at the time and blames most of what happened on that and the humid springtime heat, but he does recall waking up next to a bare-breasted woman and thinking, 'Christ'. 

"How'd you sleep?" Lindsey smiles, brushing his arm with her fingertips; Brian jerks away as if stung, and she blinks, confused. "Didn't you like it?"

"It wasn't horrible," Brian grunts; and it wasn't, he thinks - he didn't hate having sex with a woman, but if anything, it reinforced the fact that he preferred cock. "I'm a fag, though," he explains. "Never been a carpet muncher, never will." Lindsey seemed to accept that Brian didn't prefer women, but that didn't stop her from looking, and Brian, ever-vigilant, called her on it one day. "You're a dyke, aren't you?" he said with a patronizing smile.

"Brian!" Lindsey hisses, even though they're safely secluded away in her dorm. "Where'd you get an idea like that?"

"Oh, I don't know, from the millions of drawings of naked chicks in your sketch book?" Brian asserts, tongue firmly planted in his cheek. His eyes rove around the room and settle on the computer; "from the girl-on-girl porn sites you have bookmarked?" 

Lindsey flushes furiously. "I'm studying to be an art teacher," she insists. "And as for the porn ... I'm curious, okay?" But this isn't the first time such thoughts have come bidden to her mind, and it isn't the last that she hears of Brian's patronizing. Eventually, she agrees to accompany Brian to a gay nightclub one evening; "you know, for a straight girl going to a homosexual drinking establishment, you're spending an awfully long time primping," Brian chides, waggling his eyebrows as Lindsey fusses over her hair in the mirror. 

"I just want to look presentable," Lindsey protests, but she and Brian - particularly Brian, because he's going into advertising and can spot bullshit from a hundred miles away - both know she's lying. They eventually manage to get out the door, however, and have a fantastic time - rather, Lindsey assumes Brian has a fantastic time because he spends most of it in the backroom of the club. She, on the other hand, keeps making eyes at a sultry redhead, who eventually saunters over and offers to buy her a drink. By the time Brian is sufficiently sexed-out and vaguely buzzed from whatever combination of alcohol and drugs he's inhaled that evening, Lindsey has Rebecca Tucci's name and number carefully secured in the back pocket of her tight jeans. Rebecca tucked the slip of paper into it herself. 

Summer comes, and Brian moves off-campus and into a tiny apartment in the Pitts, having decided long ago that he'd rather live on the streets than with his parents again. He says his goodbyes to Lindsey for three months and bothers Michael a lot at the Big Q where he's started working to help his mom pay the bills; he points out the irony of the store's name and Michael's closeted status, and Michael always tells him, albeit good-naturedly, to fuck off about it. 

One evening, when Michael's doing overnight inventory and Brian's decided he screwed enough guys the night before to last him at least the weekend, Lindsey calls him in tears. Her parents walked in on her boinking Rebecca Tucci, apparently, and they weren't happy Christians. "They said they couldn't believe their own daughter would bring shame on them like this, that God finds what I was doing abominable. Why is it abominable that Rebecca and I love each other?" she sobs, and Brian comforts her in his own cynical way, explaining that straight people don't like to admit that fags have better sex lives with less strings attached by conventional things like marriage. 

"My mother said she was d-devastated that I would never be getting married or giving her a child," Lindsey sniffs furiously into the receiver. "She said that God doesn't give children and families to lesbians."

Brian sighs, rubbing his forehead with an open palm. "Well, one day, you'll just have to prove her *and* God wrong," he says. And she does.

...

When Brian is in his too-late-twenties, he meets up with Justin, by chance, underneath a streetlamp at Babylon. Justin is young and hot and eager, and he makes Brian feel like he's in his prime and not pushing up daisies, despite the fact that Lindsey has just pushed his son out of her stomach in the same evening. Brian's kind of old, now, but Justin makes him feel young. 

Justin admits one evening that the first thing he ever told Daphne about him was that he had "the face of God". Brian teases him about it, but even though he's been complimented for his looks many times by many people, there's something special about it coming from Justin's mouth. And indeed, it isn't the only compliment to fall from the boy's lips; Brian is used to his sexual partners finding religion while his dick is buried up their ass, but only when Justin gasps out things like, "Jesus, Brian", and "oh, God, I'm going to come" does it sound, well, Holy. 

Justin has been raised Catholic, too; Brian figures as much as soon as he finds out that the boy attends St. James' Academy, but it never gets discussed until Justin broaches the subject on a Sunday afternoon when he's invited himself over to the loft. "You don't go to church?" he teases as Brian helps to pat his back dry after a shared shower. 

"I prefer to partake in other Holy events," Brian replies, smacking Justin's ass with a flattened palm on the way to his bedroom. "I used to, though," he adds, and Justin blinks, interested at the new morsel of information he's gathered. Justin soaks up the sparsely-given details of Brian's life like a sponge, and Brian decides he likes it as much as it terrifies him to let somebody get that close.

For the better part of a year, Brian bounces Justin's emotions around like a yo-yo. He refuses to give him the time of day until Justin's dad realizes that his son is a faggot and practically beats the shit out of Brian. Justin gets pissed off and swears that he's never going to go home again, and Brian begrudgingly offers to let Justin stay with him. Then his loft gets robbed and Brian, never having had to live with somebody for the better part of a decade, gets pissed off and kicks him out, and Justin proves he's every bit as much a drama queen as Brian's friend, Emmett, and heads off to New York City, Brian's credit card in hand, no less. Brian likes to think that he taught Justin a lesson when he drove five hours to retrieve it and him, but he doesn't recall hearing Justin complaining too loudly when he fucked him into the mattress in the posh hotel room that he actually paid for. 

Justin's there when Brian almost loses his job because of a sexual harassment lawsuit, and acts equally bemused when it gets mysteriously dropped. He's the only person who doesn't chew Brian a new asshole when the birthday party he throws for Michael goes awry, and even stays to help him clean up as much of the mess as he can. Justin asks Brian to be his date to the Prom, though, and Brian scoffs and turns him down, citing the fact that he wouldn't be caught dead in a room full of fucking eighteen-year-olds - although he readily admits to fucking a certain eighteen-year-old, and often. Justin sighs and accepts this, just as he accepts everything Brian says, and when Brian shows up anyways after practically hanging himself with the same white scarf he winds loosely around Justin's neck as he leads him out to the dance floor, Justin accepts that, too. They dance and it's amazing, "ridiculously romantic", as Brian calls it, and the best night of Justin's life, so he says. 

And then Chris Hobbs, stupid fucking Chris Hobbs who's been harassing Justin for pretty much as long as he's known Brian, shows up with a baseball bat and completely ruins the mood. Brian wants to bash Chris' head in, but he settles for just fucking up the rest of his football season by mauling his leg because Justin's lying on the ground in an ever-growing pool of his own blood and oh, God, what in the hell is he supposed to do? "God!" he yells, and he's not sure if he's asking for advice or calling the deity out. He's not sure if Justin lying in a coma for two weeks because of him is meant to be his punishment, and if so, he's not sure exactly what he's being punished for - being gay? Taking so long to show Justin that he loves him? Loving him at all? Fucking a boy almost half his age? And Brian lurks around the hospital in the dead of night so nobody knows that he's there, because he doesn't think he can properly convey how fucking guilty he feels, and he doesn't need to hear how he's supposed to be, or that it's not his fault. 

And Justin gets better and eventually is deemed well enough to leave the hospital, and the first thing he does is find Brian. But Justin's still hurt beneath the brave exterior he's put up, and Brian sees this, and wonders if this, too, is part of God's complex punishment for him - that he can be with Justin, but that Justin can hardly stand to be touched. And so even though Brian can't sleep at night, either, because memories of watching Justin being bashed replay in his head almost constantly, even though his own brave exterior feels like it's crumbling with each passing day, Brian continues to try and help Justin replay the event in his own head until something clicks. And after all the false starts and failed stimuli, the thing that finally works is a hollow yellow baseball bat, given to Gus for his first birthday. 

Justin sobs for a good ten minutes in Brian's arms, moaning and shaking and eventually sniffling as Brian carefully leads him to the car and drives towards the loft. Justin sits on his bed silently after that, newly pieced together after having been so violently broken apart, and Brian watches him carefully in the dimly-lit room for several moments. "You really scared me back there, you know," Brian finally admits, running his hand through his hair the way he always does when he's nervous or confused. "It was like you'd gotten bashed all over again." 

They have sex after that, as slowly and gently as they did the night they met, ironic, since it is exactly a year past that date. Justin calls out Brian's name in soft, throaty whispers, which eventually become louder and more persistent as he nears orgasm. "God ... oh, God, Brian, Brian," he chants as he's tipped over the edge, and Brian kisses his neck and cheek and jawline. What Justin doesn't know is that he's calling out to God, too, and this time, it's to say, 'thank you'.

...

When Brian's mother stops by unexpectedly one afternoon, right in the middle of his and Justin's Viagra-induced fuck-fest, Brian considers relinquishing every good thought he's ever had about God. He doesn't mean for her to find out - he hasn't been hiding it, exactly; he just hasn't come up with a good way to segue from "how about that sermon?" to "by the way, I'm a fag." He didn't have to with his father; he just up and blurted it out, and good old Dad called him a fairy and told him that he should be the one dying of cancer, and Brian resisted the urge to choke him. 

It's harder with his mother - not only because he's just hopped himself up a recreational handful of Ted's penis pills and has an erection the size of Mount Rushmore, but also since she seems to take it a lot more to heart. With Jack, it was a matter of being a faggot equating to being weak or a sissy. "You pack a pretty good wallop for a fairy," he later said, and it was probably the closest thing to an apology Brian ever received from his dad - it made sense, in some twisted, fucked-up way, that it was also the last time he saw him. 

Joan, though, takes Brian's homosexuality to mean that she's failed to instill in him all the tenets of all that is good and Holy and Christian. "I hope you know that it's a sin," she spits before turning on her heel and stalking towards the elevator. Brian watches her leave, wanting to hurt her back, to yell, "hey, I fucked your priest; the guy you think is 'just like a son to you' is a fucking faggot homo, too!', but he doesn't. Instead, he thinks about all of the things he's done to ensure his place in Heaven as a kid, the hours of servitude he willingly gave, the excruciatingly dull sermons and classes he endured so his mother and the church and God would be happy. All of that work, he thinks, and it's undone simply because he likes cock instead of pussy; because the person standing back in his kitchen, curious as to the nature of the visitor and freshly fucked, is a male instead of a female. 

At this, Brian realizes that his erection, once proudly standing even after three or four rounds inside of Justin's ass, has since been lost. He turns back inside and glares at the large chocolate cake his mother brought over, a gift, she'd claimed initially, to repay him for bringing her to church last week. It's so fucking funny, he thinks, that he forgot to laugh. 

"Brian," Justin whispers, and Brian looks up at the boy's aghast expression. "I, I'm s-sorry," the blond sniffles, and Brian quickly walks around the island in the kitchen to grasp his shoulders, the rest of their bodies, both bare from the waist up in alignment, and only scant inches apart. Justin's expression is similar to the time Brian returned from the Leather Ball after leaving Gus in his care, only to be found out and reprimanded by Melanie for his lack of baby formula finesse, and Brian almost laughs because it's so cutely devastated.

"What are you sorry for?" Brian replies, rubbing Justin's back comfortingly. "She would have found out sooner or later; might as well be sooner." 

"I shouldn't have come out of the bedroom," Justin mumbles against Brian's chest. "If I had just stayed in there, noth-"

"You live here," Brian reminds him. "You're not a prisoner." Justin nods, understanding the distinction, and Brian wonders vaguely what he's done to earn so much of the boy's unadulterated trust.

Brian never does tell his mother that her priest is a fudgepacker. He's not doing it for the figurehead, he tells him when they run into one another at Babylon for the second time, even though he does give great head, and he's not even really doing it for God. For some fucked up reason, he's doing it for his mother; 'because', he thinks, 'God hasn't done much of anything for me lately, but if that's what keeps the old bag going, who am I to stop her?'

...

Brian survives an overly-eventful thirtieth birthday, and Justin leaving him and coming back to him, and Vic dying, and Michael's first and second boyfriends, and the rise and fall of Stockwell, and a teenaged hustler in a pear tree, and he thinks he's pretty much had every possible curve ball thrown his way.

And then, along comes cancer.

Brian doesn't want anybody to know, doesn't want them to start seeing him as anything less perfect or awe-inspiring or even smug than they already do. But Justin figures it out - Justin figures a lot out that Brian doesn't want him to - and tells Michael, and pretty soon, Brian is confiding in Debbie. Of course, it means that chicken soup and sympathy start turning up at regular intervals, and if he weren't so grateful for the reassurance that, aside from one of his nuts being plastic from now on, nothing has changed, he'd try to be a little more pissed off about it. 

And when Debbie confesses that she's told his mother because he has no interest in doing so, he feels strangely indifferent. After all, this is the woman who never gives him the time of day unless it's to preach about some ass-backwards misinterpreted tenet of her fucking mournful faith, who constantly belittles the surrogate family he wishes he knew by blood, who wouldn't even give him the benefit of the doubt when Claire's little fuckhead of a kid accused him of molestation because Brian caught him trying to swipe some of his cash and dunked his fat head in the toilet a couple of times. What else could she possibly say to hurt him anymore, he thinks? 

But Joan stops by Kinnetik a couple of afternoons later, scornful of Debbie and impressed by her son's obvious wealth and success. "Why didn't you tell me?" she finally asks, and Brian scoffs. "The reason being?" he shrugs. 

"So I can help you!"

"I'm a big boy, Mom. I can dress myself," he says, and it's almost sincere. He said something similar to Justin only a few days prior, back before Brian knew that Justin knew, and the tender moment that ensued brings a smile to his face presently. However, it's quickly squandered when his mother clarifies exactly what she meant. 

"I mean," she says, "pray for you. Help you to see God's plan."

"God has a plan?" Brian queries, bemused. 

"He spared you for a reason," Joan insists. "Do you know why?" Brian snarks that it must simply be to torment her as part of her sainthood, because his mother is nothing if not a martyr, and Joan sighs patronizingly. "Whatever anger, whatever hatred you have for me, you’re still my son," she explains, and for a moment, Brian thinks, in vain, that she's going to hug him and tell him how much she loves him, how sorry she is that he's suffering. Instead, she prattles on about eternal damnation and the ultimate sin of being a fag. "It brings tears to Jesus’ eyes knowing that you’ve sinned. But only you can save yourself from God’s punishment." 

And suddenly, Brian detests the woman standing before him, more than he detested the thought of Justin prostituting himself as a go-go dancer because he was too proud to ask Brian for money to pay his PIFA tuition after his dad cut him off; more than Jack's flinging around words like, "it should be you dying, not me" like a curse; more than himself when he looked in the dirty mirror in the hospital bathroom the night Justin was bashed and asked his image for the millionth time why the fuck he thought he had the right to crash a high school Prom. "You think God gave me cancer to punish me?" he asks in disbelief, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. 

But Joan's sights are already set on the glory of Brian's potential retribution. "It's not too late," she insists. "You can change, I know you can." She's passionate about this, Brian can feel it; Joan has only ever been indifferent about everything concerning Brian's life, and if the situation weren't what it is, he'd be excited to see her flushed and teeming with energy like she is. "It won't be easy, though," she admonishes, and Brian continues to pretend that he's interested, that he's still following her. "You'll have to fight temptation," she whispers, shaking her fist. "You'll have to be strong, to harden yourself."

"I want to be hard, Mom," he says, and it's the same tone he'd have used if he were confessing his sins inside the small, dark booth inside the church that he spent most of his childhood in. "Oh Lord, make me hard," Brian melodramatizes, "so that I can fuck every hot guy I see! That’s why God gave me a second chance, Mom," he continues, loudly, so that she can't just ignore him; "so that I can use the one ball I have left!" Justin must have been rubbing off on him a bit, he thinks, but is unable to be amused for long as he stares into his mother's furious face.

"Shame!" Joan cries, eyes glassy with tears as she blindly grabs for the handle of the door and pulls it open. "Shame on you!" She's walking down the hallway towards the exit, and Brian is unable to resist getting one more jab in, so he runs after her.

"If I have to spend an eternity of eternities burning in Hell," he vows, "it’s better than spending one good day in Heaven with you!" The front doors of Kinnetic swing closed, and Brian catches his breath and realizes that he has the audience of his entire office staff, watching him with curious, shocked eyes. He quickly retreats back into his office without a word, and that's when he notices it: his erection. The erection he's been trying to sustain since his surgery and has failed, the one that's eluded him in the face of images coming unbidden into his mind, of bloody testicles and ugly incisions, is here at last, tenting his pants as it juts out proudly. He wants to laugh; he wants to cry; he wants, he decides, to have a chance to use it.

He quickly informs everyone that he's taking the rest of the afternoon off and heads to Babylon, where he knows Justin has been going after school for his cycling class. "What's up?" the blond grins as Brian greets him with a pronounced kiss. 

Brian cannot keep the smile off of his own face. "Funny you should ask," he says smugly, and gestures towards his crotch. Justin clamours into his arms gleefully, practically shivering with excitement as Brian hurries them towards the backroom. "So from whence the woody?" the boy asks cutely, and Brian considers the importance of his words before answering. 

"God gave me a second chance," he finally settles on, "and I don't want to blow it. But," he says, stroking Justin's cheek affectionately, "you're welcome to." And as Justin falls to his knees and tugs down Brian's pants and underwear, as his mouth closes around Brian's cock, hard and eager, Brian is never happier to be gay. This, he thinks, is his reward for all those years spent carrying tall candles and learning scriptures and putting up with his mother's ranting. This is the outcome of his growing up gay, sullen, abused, angry, and convinced that love wasn't something he deserved to have. 'This', Brian decides, 'is why God created me'.

Maybe, he thinks, whoever it is Up There likes him, after all. 


End file.
